Saturday, November 28, 2015

Wow, what an incredible honor—when I awakened this morning, I discovered that Crisis Chronicles Press has nominated my poem "Let's Get It On" for the esteemed Pushcart Prize! I am beyond thrilled. Thank you, John Burroughs, editor/publisher of CCP, and congratulations to the other five nominees: Kevin Ridgeway, Susan A. Sheppard, John Dorsey, Michael Ceraolo, and Tracie Morell!

I wrote "Let's Get It On" for this year's Snoetry: A Winter Wordfest (held in Erie, PA back in January 2015) and it's included in the CCP NineSense Series chapbook Thunderclap Amen. The title "Thunderclap Amen" comes from a phrase in the poem...full kudos to John Burroughs for picking it out and making it the title of the chapbook.

You can read the original CCP announcement about the nominations HERE.You can order a copy of Thunderclap AmenHERE.You can read the original CCP book release announcement HERE.

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

As Thanksgiving approaches, I realize what an incredible year this has been for me, and how thankful I am for friends and poetry family.

Right around the time of my birthday in February, Richard Robert Hansen of Poems-For-All accepted my poems and then gifted me with stacks and packs of little micro books that he created using my poem Dia de los Muertes and three winter haiku. I'm truly honored to have my little books counted among the astonishing number and caliber of his poetic creations. I must also thank John Dorsey for introducing me to Richard and his wonderful little books.

In April, to celebrate Poetry Month, the Cuyahoga County Library had their Read + Write: 30 Days of Poetry; Diane Kendig chose my poem Pools Of— for Day 13. You can read all the poems here: Read + Write: 30 Days of Poetry.

In June of this year, 48th Street Press published two sets of limited edition broadsides featuring my poems The Color of Oxygen and Sonar Readings. Thank you, Christopher Byck, for doing such a lovely job with them!

My haiku appeared in Modern Haiku and bottle rockets, two beautiful publications, and I was given the opportunity to compete in my first Haiku Death Match. Although I didn't win, it was fun to participate in it, and I'm already looking forward to the next one.

Also this summer, Karen Schubert offered the opportunity to submit ekphrastic poetry to a Lit Youngstown competition, and to my astonishment, I won. I am totally thrilled that my poem Disco appeared on the gorgeous violet-and-lime tote bags given away at the 2015 Youngstown Festival of the Arts. Then Lit Youngstown put Disco on their tee-shirts! I'm on a tee-shirt...I feel like a rock star!

Crisis Chronicles Press published a new chapbook for me, Thunderclap Amen, as part of its NineSense Series. The nine poems included are Cue Brick, or How I Learned to Stop Loving the Bomb and Start Worrying, Karma Café, Let's Get It On, Polar Vortex, Happy Hour, 'S No More, Transcending Gender, Around the Block, and Mother Tongue. Once again, editor/publisher John Burroughs created a beautiful book for me, and I'm proud to be one of his press' published poets.

Jameson Bayles, a poet in Kansas City, invited me to come read in KC as part of a mega-poetry event next year, in April of 2016...it's going to be the Kansas City Poetry Throw-Down! As a buildup to the event, Asinimali Publications published a collaborative chapbook, A Case for Ascension, containing three of my "ascension" poems. The other collaborators (ooh, that sounds sort of criminal!) are John Burroughs, Jameson Bayles, Joan Koromante, and Michelle Roberts. I'm thrilled to be included in this poetry band of brothers and sisters!

From the moment I first laid eyes on Great Lakes Review, I fell in love with the publication, which showcases writers across the Great Lakes region. I'm very honored to say that four of my poems appear in the current issue, and I'm especially pleased that two of them are ekphrastic poems and two of them are performance pieces.

I also had work accepted for two very different anthologies: Inspired by Gandhi, published by Sampad.org.uk, and Quarried-Three Decades of Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel (Dos Madres Press). Ten of my most requested poems appear in The Poetry of S.O.U.L. An Anthology of Selected Works from Poets Around the World.

I participated in SPACES Pedestrian Poetry, where I sat at a booth in an art fair across from Cleveland's famed West Side Market, and went waaay outside my comfort zone by writing poems "on the fly" for strangers who approached me and requested a poem. It turned out to be a wonderful and rewarding experience! In November, I participated, as NightBallet Press, in the "Meet the Presses" event hosted by Lorraine Cipriano at the Sanger Branch Library in Toledo. It was a wonderful afternoon!

I had the glorious opportunity to travel to several different poetry events, both with friend and poetry partner John Burroughs, and solo. We hit Toledo for a reading at the West Toledo Branch Library, and encountered rain and wind on a biblical level. Yes, I wrote a poem about it. I read at Youngstown State University during their Festival of the Arts, and also read at SUNY at Fredonia, NY as part of the International Beat Poetry Festival. John and I traveled several times to Farmingon, MI, just outside Detroit, for readings at their S.O.U.L. events, and we both read in Lorain, Ohio, during the Lorain Arts Council's Soul Speak event. We also closed out the 3rd Thursday at the Root Café series. We are very sorry to see the series end, and I thank you, Barbara Sabol, for the opportunity to be a part of it.

These are only some of the poetry things that have kept me going through a personally difficult year. I've been honored to publish several more talented and deserving poets through NightBallet Press. BeatStreet Cleveland was one of the high points of my life, getting to hear so many exciting poets and musicians in one place! You can learn more about NightBallet Press and BeatStreet Cleveland at those websites.

Make no mistake about it, I realize that I am lucky and blessed to have had so many opportunities and experiences. I love spending time with my extended poetry family. I cherish my poetry friends, and I cherish all the things we do together to celebrate the spoken and written word. I thank you, dear brothers and sisters, I send you hugs and wish you all this best Thanksgiving 2015.

Friday, November 13, 2015

This is where I'll be next Saturday! The event will include an open mic, refreshments, and music by Undisputed Truth. I invite you to join us there as we speak our souls, share some hugs, and generally groove.

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The Public Persona

Dianne Borsenik is active in the northern Ohio, Cleveland-area, poetry scene and regional reading circuit, and travels to read her poetry throughout the Midwest. She is a member of the Ohio Poetry Association, the Haiku Society of America, the Ohioana Library Association, and the Erie Art Museum. In 2011, she founded NightBallet Press (where she is M.F.W.I.C.), and has since published over 100 titles for poets across the U.S. In September 2015, she produced BeatStreet Cleveland as part of the National Beat Poetry Festival.
Her poetry has appeared in hundreds of journals, magazines, anthologies, and more, including Main Street Rag, Chiron Review, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, The Offbeat, Rosebud, Slipstream, Lilliput Review, bottle rockets, Voices of Cleveland, Poems-For-All, Haiku World: An International Poetry Almanac and The Magnetic Poetry® Book of Poetry. Her poetry has also appeared in numerous galleries and projects, including Cleveland Heights Arts Gallery's "Ekphrastacy," the Wick Poetry Center's Speak Peace-American Voices Respond to Vietnamese Children's Paintings, Amy Mothersbaugh's Studio 2091, & S. A. Griffin's cross-country project The Poetry Bomb. A copy of her haiku chapbook Blue Graffiti (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2011) is in the Decatur Haiku Collection at Millikin University. In 2016, Crisis Chronicles Press published her first full-length collection of poetry, Age of Aquarius, and in January, 2019, Stubborn Mule Press published her second full-length collection, Raga for What Comes Next, which will be released 1/24/19 at Speak of the Devil in Lorain, Ohio. Actor Jonathan Frid (Barnabas on television's Dark Shadows) used three of her poems in his one-man touring show Genesis of Evil. Her poem "Let's Get It On" (from her chapbook Thunderclap Amen) was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. In 2013 and again in 2014, she won first place in the Best Cleveland Poem Competition. She participated in the Cleveland City Club's/Guide to Kulchur Race Anthology project, and serves annually as a juror in the Cleveland Institute of Art's Scholastic Writing Awards. In Summer 2015, her poem "Disco" was selected by the Youngstown Summer Festival of the Arts to appear on its reusable tote bags, and Lit Youngstown printed the poem on their tee shirts, which makes her feel like a rock star. She believes in the musicality of language and the originality of expression in poetry, and continues to seek publication in journals, magazines, chapbooks, and anthologies. She is willing to travel for readings, to present workshops pertaining to small press publishing, and to participate with her press at independent literary festivals.
Contact Dianne at dborsenik@gmail.com.

The Personal Shizzle

Dianne Borsenik was born Dianne Lynn Keith on February 2 (yes, Groundhog's Day), 1955 in Oberlin, Ohio. She is the Zodiac sign Aquarius and the Chinese Zodiac sign the Sheep. In 1959 her parents moved to Elyria, Ohio, about 30 minutes west of Cleveland, along with daughters Dianne and her younger sister. Dianne grew up roaming Cascade Park: a jewel of green trees, Black River, and East and West Falls in the heart of Elyria, and bookstores, wherever she could find them. In 1977 she met James Borsenik, and in 1979, married him. Their honeymoon was made especially exciting by Hurricane David hitting Florida while their car was sitting disabled in a Kissimmee parking lot. She kept her maiden name and added (unhyphenated) Borsenik. People the world over know her by the initials DLKB. James & Dianne have been blessed with several dog-childen over the years: Nickolas Wonder, Bahloo, & Dory Kiss Me Quick; today, Bodhisattva and Michel-Angelo share hearts and home. Favorite Dianne things include Toronto, the Black Hills, Led Zeppelin (emphasis on Robert Plant), steak, lobster, shrimp cocktail, asparagus, Star Trek (emphasis on Leonard Nimoy/Spock), the Monkees (emphasis on Peter Tork), apocalyptic and disaster movies, the Weather Channel, the English Royals, reading (especially biographies, nonfiction), carnations, honeysuckle, bats (the flapping, toothy kind; bats are her totem animal), rap music (Snooooooop), riding in a convertible yeah, we're rolling with the top down, strong coffee, sweet tea, spicy Bloody Marys, the internet, getting her hands dirty growing herbs and flowers, floating in the pool, Tennessee Williams, travel, thunderstorms, Glenn Miller, Frank Sinatra, Nine Inch Nails-the Closer album, Andrea Bocelli, Devo, and of course, poetry.